Plans currently offered by Australian carriers force customers to buy individual data plans for each device, unless they activate hotspots on one device and tether others to it.

The new wave of billing options will soon allow consumers to customise speeds, downloads and spending on mobile networks, but also require carriers to invest in significant upgrades to existing billing capabilities.

Advertisement

Shared plans have been available in the US and Europe since 2012. Surprisingly, carriers have seen consumers spend more on mobile data as a result, not less.

Consumers tend to spend more because they buy bigger data plans and add more devices to the account. Family plans are popular and encourage everyone to use the same carrier.

Telstra has already released a mobile shared service for business customers charging a basic fee of $60 per month for 1.1 gigabytes (GB) of data, plus a $10 sharing fee and $10 per device. Up to 8 GB can be bought for an extra $60 a month.

"We will be launching data share plans for [post-paid] consumer customers in the coming months, allowing them to share data across a number of mobile devices [such as smartphones, tablets or mobile Wi-Fi]. The plans will suit people who want to streamline and make the most of the data they pay for without any complications," a Telstra spokesman said, without giving a launch date.

An Optus spokeswoman said it was looking at data sharing, but wanted to address bill shock and international roaming first. A Vodafone spokeswoman said it considers pricing options regularly. But neither committed to a date.

In the US, AT&T and Verizon offer data, voice and message sharing on up to 10 devices. These carriers charge a fee for data and for each device. For example, a basic shared plan on Verizon costs $US40 per smartphone, $US10 per tablet and $US70 for 4 GB of data.

Senior mobile analyst at Ovum, Nicole McCormick, said she expects to see more than one Australian carrier offering this new pricing structure by the end of the year.

"Consumers do benefit from these plans since it is cheaper to have a unified account. However, this results in subscription revenue loss for the telco in the case that a person consolidates their multiple accounts [eg dongle, tablet and smartphone] with that telco. Ultimately, these plans are part of the operator's anti-churn management strategy, since a subscriber – either a connected person or connected household – is less likely to churn on a shared plan."

Goldman Sachs telecommunications analyst Raymond Tong recently released a report showing monthly spending in the US increased by about $US10 a month after shared plans were introduced and that the number of devices using networks increased substantially.

"Strong take-up of shared data plans has encouraged incremental take-up of additional connected devices [eg tablets] and greater data usage. This has resulted in strong growth in average revenue per account. Demand has been strong since Verizon and AT&T launched these plans in mid-2012, with 36 per cent of wireless accounts at Verizon already on these plans," Mr Tong wrote in a note to clients.

Sharing has become possible thanks to new billing technology, according to Alcatel-Lucent's vice president for payments, policy and charging, Fran Heeran.

Consumers tend to ease back on data usage when they get close to a monthly cap, rather than fork out for additional data, Heeran said.

"When carriers add it all up, they see people use more data and buy more data in a shared plan than in individual plans."

The real-time billing allows families to control how much data each device gets to use and when, allowing parents to turn internet access off during certain hours or limit their children's data usage.

Alcatel-Lucent has also found app-specific billing options were quite popular overseas. Consumers could stream unlimited video through a service, such as iView or Foxtel, for a small additional fee every month, or buy speed boosts to make particular apps run faster.

How much you can save

A small business that supplies phones to four employees could save $100 per month using data sharing.

Four phones would cost $100 per month on Telstra's shared plans for businesses, compared to $200 for four phones on individual plans. The difference is all four phones would share 1 GB of data every month, rather than having 1 GB per phone. Increasing to 3 GB of shared data would cost an extra $30 per month, still $70 cheaper than individual plans.

However, data sharing on two phones and two broadband dongles is not necessarily cheaper. The maximum of 8 GB data sharing would only be about $10 cheaper and have less data than two individual phone and two individual dongle plans. This would cost $150 per month for the four devices with 1 GB per device. Increasing to 4 GB per device would cost a total of $170 per month.

Sharing would cost $100 per month with 1 GB of shared data, and increasing this to 3 GB or 8 GB would cost an extra $30 and $60 respectively. So the option is $160 for a total of 8 GB or $170 for a total of 10 GB.

Australian reseller Dodo already offers data sharing on up to five devices. It charges $5 per month for each additional SIM card, plus a $20 activation fee per SIM. So sharing 4GB among five devices would cost a new customer $65 per month plus $80 set-up fee.

17 comments

"Telstra has already released a mobile shared service for business customers charging a basic fee of $60 per month for 1.1 gigabytes of data, plus a $10 sharing fee and $10 per device. Up to 8 gigabytes can be bought for an extra $60 a month."

Why would anyone pay $60 per month for 1 gig of data? You could sign up for a new high-end 4G mobile phone plan for the same and get three or more times as much data which you could share with any wireless device you like.

Commenter

Wha?

Date and time

August 16, 2013, 10:07AM

again...telstra has done it again... over price the options , so no one will be interested in it. $60.00 for 1GB to share is a joke.

Commenter

FatZ

Date and time

August 16, 2013, 9:15PM

I thought Dodo had been offering these plans for months....

Commenter

John Gosford

Date and time

August 16, 2013, 10:47AM

dodo charges 20 bucks to setup it up! (what!?) and extra $5.00 a mth to share... another rip off! you could go on an Aldi/kogan etc data plan for less..

Commenter

FatZ

Date and time

August 16, 2013, 9:17PM

Yes I would use a shared plan for a iPhone and iPad. I'm glad these options are finally on the way.

Commenter

Sydney

Date and time

August 16, 2013, 10:54AM

This is news? Shared plans have been available for years - especially for corporate and small business accounts.

Commenter

Walkesby

Date and time

August 16, 2013, 11:37AM

Virgin offers discounts when you add new devices to an existing phone plan. I added a 2Gb usb dongle to my phone plan for $10 with Virgin. Will be adding another sim card for 2Gb for the iPad too.

Commenter

ParraPhil

Location

Sydney

Date and time

August 16, 2013, 11:43AM

Why do we restrict users to a download limit when everyelse in the world have unlimited downloads but you pay for the speed you want, faster costs more

Check out the US plans - unlimited data 3mbs speed for $40 per month

And I can get 200gb for home for $90 with Telstra cable - how do they get off charging $60 for 1.1gb

Commenter

Flavio

Date and time

August 16, 2013, 12:19PM

We need this style of plans!

1gb or 2gb a month is not enough for people like me who use more than that. If I want download stuff, I always do it on my home wifi because otherwise I'll have no data left really quick.

I mean, you get pretty much get unlimited broadband for $50 now, so I certinaltey won't be converting unless you get a similar deal for shared devices.

Commenter

Ellie

Date and time

August 16, 2013, 1:00PM

but it's not like Telstra's actually competing on price though. At $10/device plus (let's be generous) an average of $7.50 per extra gig, it's like $17.50/extra device, you'd need to add more than 20 extra devices before you broke even vs the TPG $20 plan/device